An Uncanny Likeness
by outtabreath
Summary: Tony introduces Pepper to her action figure.


ingridmatthew's sublime Sherlock Holmes fic, Too Close for Comfort, inspired this bit of crack. Please check out the original on her LJ, The Nerd Cave. It is perfect and priceless.

Thanks as always to miss steph and the marvelous ladies at Writers Anonymous.

**~*~An Uncanny Likeness by outtabreath~*~**

"It's a Pepper Potts action figure," Tony says, sounding way too happy.

She stares at it as it lies on the table in front of her. "My boobs _are not_ that big, Tony." It's really the only thing she can think to say at the moment.

He shifts slightly closer to her – they're sitting on the couch, which, she realizes now, was a big mistake – and says, "How about you let me confirm that?"

Without looking, without really thinking, she smacks his hand as it reaches for her; he lets out a wounded sound and scoops up the doll with the martyred air of someone whose innocent intent has been horribly misinterpreted.

"I meant the _figure, _Potts." He turns it over in his hands and says musingly, "I wonder if I can take _its_ clothes off."

She grabs it out of his evil, shapely fingers. "You won't be taking the clothes off of _any_ Pepper Potts."

He grabs the doll back and says - in a high and squeaky voice that she comes to realize in horrified waves is meant to be _her_ - "Tony, you _know_ I don't find it at all amusing when you flirt so outrageously with me."

"I don't talk like that!"

"Yeah you do, especially when I flirt outrageously with you." He drops his eyes and fiddles with the plastic figure. "Damn, the clothes are molded on."

"Stop molesting the doll, Tony."

"I can't help myself; she looks like you."

Pepper ignores the coil of heat in the area below her belly button, and protests. "I sure as hell _do not _look like that."

"They got the hair and suit right."

"I don't care," she says, trying to grab her doppelganger back from Tony. She doesn't like what it does to her when she watches him run his fingers over it.

He pouts, which isn't adorable _at all_ - at least that's what she's determined to tell herself – and holds the Pepper figure out of her reach. "I thought you'd be flattered."

She gives up trying to take it back – she can see that she'll end up touching him far too much if she doesn't – and spits out, "Flattered? I'm _litigious_. There's a plastic doll running around with my name and _those_," she gestures to where the chestal – the highly inflated chestal – area is poking out. "How the hell am I supposed to be flattered?"

"It doesn't exactly _run,_" he corrects. "Its legs don't even bend at the knees, but… that's a good idea - a fully-poseable Pepper Potts doll with removable clothes."

She swallows and scowls.

"Highly Competent PA Barbie," he continues. "Iron Man Ken's very own associate. She'll come with her own mini Blackberry, severe, figure-masking suits - and one very hot blue dress - and _shoes_…high, high heels with straps and buckles and…."

"This is bad enough," she sputters. "How dare th-? How can th-? Don't I have to give them permission to use my likeness? You know, I'm almost entirely sure they do. I'm calling our attorneys."

Tony shifts suspiciously and clears his throat in a sickeningly familiar way; Pepper fixes him with the frostiest glare of her life. "What did you do, Stark?"

"Iron Man needed his faithful sidekick!"

"Tony!"

"It's a good idea. Marketing was beside themselves when I told them about it. It was like all twenty of them had a spontaneous orgasm." He wriggles his eyebrows at her. "Want me to recreate it for you?"

"Absolutely not." She's shaking with rage now - only rage, just rage. Nothing else. Really and truly.

She almost certainly does not care that Tony just offered to recreate an orgasm for her.

"So, I am to understand that you signed away my life," she intones icily.

"No, Pepper," he protests fervently, "Just your likeness. Your life is mine - you signed it away when you started working for me."

"I hate you."

"No, you don't," he says confidently, picking up the Iron Man figure - the one with the removable helmet removed - and pushing it close to the doll that's supposed to be her. He lowers his voice to a tenor more manly than any Tony Stark has heretofore achieved. "Pepper, I'm flying off again – heading right into harm's way…into _danger_. There'll be tanks with missiles and criminals with personal injury attorneys – won't you give me something to remember you by? Can't you give me a reason to come back?"

She leans back, arms crossed and eyes narrowed, watching his insane puppet show.

Tony's voice goes up again. "Tony, you have tons of things to come back for. You have to review the Hilit-Stark merger and you have a Board meeting next week. I need you to sign contracts and letters. Harvard wants you to be their commencement speaker in 2013. Wind farm! Cow farm! Phat Farm! Just because you got out of work for three months last year, you better not think I'll _ever_ let you do _that _again. If you don't come back, I'll follow you into the afterlife and drag you back kicking and screaming."

He moves the Tony doll so it's practically touching the Pepper doll. "That's not what I meant, Potts. Won't you _miss_ me? Maybe just a little?" His voice is practically a growl now, which does absolutely nothing to her stomach, thank you very much.

He turns the Pepper doll so her back is facing the Tony doll. "I can't! You're my boss!"

He makes the Tony doll spin the Pepper doll back around. "Pepper…."

"Oh, Tony! I just can't fight it anymore! I _have_ to have you, you hunk of superhero hotness! Now shut up and kiss me!"

He mashes the plastic heads together in what is meant to be a kiss; Pepper watches and fights the tugging at the corner of her lips.

Tony pulls the figures apart and sets them on the table in front of them. "I think Action Figure Pepper is happy she did that."

"Action Figure Pepper hates Action Figure Tony."

"No, she doesn't," he says, grinning and leaning towards her. "Action Figure Pepper is crazy about Action Figure Tony…."

"Crazy _because_ of him…."

"And she hates it when he flies away into action figure danger and she finally had to tell him, _show_ him, because, no matter how much it scared her, she couldn't let him leave again without him knowing. Action Figure Pepper would never have been able to live with herself if Action Figure Tony got hurt without him knowing how much she needs and wants him."

"Action Figure Pepper is plastic and, therefore, has no feelings," she says, as if she hadn't _just_ said that her doll hated Tony's doll.

"Oh, she has feelings," he says, laying Action Figure Pepper on top of Action Figure Tony. "And she's expressing them right now."

"You're disgusting."

"I'm not the one whose action figure is ravishing my action figure while he's still in his suit." He moves the figures in a way that has no impact on her heart or stomach. Honestly it doesn't.

"Oh, Tony," he squeaks, "You're incredibly sexy. I can tell you've been working out. I love the suit and the arc reactor - they turn me on _so_ much – _you_ turn me on so much. When I'm with you I become a helpless, quivering, _shivering _mass of hormones."

"Action Figure Pepper is going to regret that when Action Figure Tony leaves her for some skanky Bratz doll."

Tony stops sliding the dolls together and looks at Pepper, his face incredibly serious and resolute for a man playing with children's toys. "Action Figure Tony would never leave Action Figure Pepper – not for anything or anyone. He's devoted to her."

Pepper's heart speeds up and she fights to remember how to breathe.

"Besides," Tony says, turning back to his toys. "Have you _seen_ her boobs?"

"I hate you."

"No, you don't."

No. She doesn't.


End file.
